6.08.2009

Sweden’s Pirate Party, which wants an internet filesharing free-for-all, is one of the surprise entrants to the European Parliament after winning 7.4 per cent of the vote.[Yeah!!!]The party, which also wants to beef up internet privacy, was founded in January 2006 and quickly attracted members angered by Swedish laws that criminalise filesharing and authorise the monitoring of e-mails. Its membership shot up after a court in Stockholm sentenced four men in April to a year in jail for running one of the world’s biggest filesharing sites, the Pirate Bay. Voters had their revenge last night by electing at least one of the Pirate Party as an MEP.“When the verdict was announced at 11.00am, we had 14,711 members,” said Rick Falkvinge, the party’s founder. “We tripled in a week, becoming the third-biggest party in Sweden in terms of numbers. All of a sudden we were everywhere.”